I closed up after the girls and when I turned back to Jessa, she held her phone out to me. “Could you try Maggie again? I haven’t been able to reach her yet.”
“Oh. Of course.”
“Thanks.” She grimaced. “I have to go take care of some more water breakage…”
I wrinkled my nose a little, though I tried not to.
Yeah. I’d make a terrible midwife.
Jessa headed upstairs. I found Maggie’s contact open on the screen and called her, but she didn’t answer. I left a voicemail, striving to sound urgent-but-calm, then started unpacking my camera and getting it ready, popping the backup battery on the charger, making sure I had a fresh memory card in—just in case there were any sudden photo ops. I wasn’t sure what to expect, how quickly things would progress.
Or wouldn’t.
After a few minutes, I wandered upstairs and in through the open door of the master bedroom. Jessa was nowhere to be seen, but the door to the en suite bathroom was closed.
I rapped a knuckle softly on the door. “You okay in there?” I called gently, not wanting to startle the baby right out of her.
“I’m good,” she said, sounding faraway and pretty tired. “Did you reach Maggie?”
“No, but I left her a message, and I’ll keep trying. I’m sure she’ll call back soon.”
“Okay. Can you call Zane?”
“Zane?” I repeated, unsure if I’d heard her correctly.
“Zane Traynor. He’s in my contacts.”
“Um. Zane’s your backup Brody-fill-in?” What about Katie?
“Zane??” Jessa sounded mildly horrified. “God, no. But he might know where Maggie is.”
“Oh. Okay…”
I dutifully searched her contacts for Zane’s number, though I was curious… It was close to midnight. Why would Dirty’s cocky lead singer, of all people, know where Maggie was?
Unless…
Oh. My.
I took a breath and dialed his number. I barely knew the guy, and I felt kinda like a stalker calling his personal phone number in the middle of the night, even though Jessa asked me to.
“Jessa?” he answered after a few rings, sounding kinda sleepy but not exactly like I’d woken him up.
“Um, no. It’s Amber.” I introduced myself, awkwardly, not exactly expecting him to remember me, considering how many women he’d probably met in his life. I started to describe myself as Dylan’s friend, the photographer, but that was so incredibly lame, I went with Liv Malone’s sister instead—rather than the more straightforward and no doubt memorable The girl who got wasted at your birthday party and went home with two of your friends.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Where’s Jessa?”
“She’s here, at home. Her water just broke,” I explained, “and she wants Maggie to come over. She asked me to call you to see if you know where she is.”
After a slight pause, Zane said, “I’ll send her over,” in his smoky-sexy-sleepy voice.
Then he hung up.
Exactly seven minutes later, Maggie was at the front door.
Which was incredibly interesting, if you knew that Maggie—who’d professed to be “completely single” at the shower, when the girls were dishing on their love lives—lived about half an hour away, on the opposite side of downtown, near Granville Island. Zane’s new house in West Vancouver, however, was easily a seven minute drive from here at this time of night.
“I didn’t know you were seeing Zane,” I said, quietly—since maybe it was some kind of secret?—as she hurried into the house, looking flustered.
“What? I’m not seeing Zane,” she said, her clear gray eyes fixing on me. I could’ve almost thought she was joking, but there was no trace of amusement on her face.
Oops.
She either wasn’t seeing Zane, possibly, or more likely, given the vibe I was getting off of her, she wanted me to shut the fuck up about it.
Message received.
“Okay. I—”
“Where is she?” She tossed her purse on a table and headed across the foyer.
“Upstairs. Cleaning up…”
I followed Maggie up the stairs, filling her in. I didn’t want to seem rude or anything, but I was deeply relieved that she was here, so that the pressure was off me. I really didn’t know Jessa very well, I knew next to nothing about giving birth, and I wasn’t exactly sure how I could be helpful other than taking photos and maybe calling 9-1-1.
Now that Maggie was here, it was kind of exciting, actually. I’d never experienced a birth before.
When we walked into the master bedroom, Jessa was standing there, looking a little lost. She’d ditched her pretty but comfortable party clothes and changed into loose-fit yoga pants and what looked like a man’s white T-shirt, stretched over her belly. I felt bad for her when I saw the look on her face, somewhere between fear and I-wish-it-was-tomorrow-already.
Luckily, Maggie knew what to do. She swept right in and took charge.
First order of business: giving Jessa a hug. Then she stuffed a few last-minute items into the hospital bag Jessa had prepped. She steeped peppermint tea. And she calmed Jessa down when she started babbling anxiously about Brody not being here and what if she went into active labor and what if he missed it and how could she do this alone.
“You’re not alone,” Maggie said firmly. “You’ve got some of the best medical care on the planet. Brody will be back. You’re going to be fine. Now fill me in on what the midwife said.”
So Jessa filled Maggie in, and they got to planning out the next twenty-four hours.
First, sleep.
Then breakfast, then a morning walk.
Acupuncture at a clinic that specialized in treating pregnant women, which could, apparently, sometimes help to induce labor.
Then a disgusting smoothie made of castor oil, frozen fruit and almond butter, which was also supposed to help induce labor. “The almond butter’s to help disguise the taste a bit,” Maggie explained to me, “because apparently it tastes like shit and makes you sick.”
All of this, assuming the contractions hadn’t started on their own.
If they did, we timed them, then headed to the hospital when they were a few minutes apart and intense—intense defined as Jessa being unable to speak through a sentence while she was having one.
If the contractions didn’t start, tomorrow at midnight, Jessa had to check into the hospital anyway. “Basically, we have twenty-four hours from the time the water broke,” Maggie filled me in, “to try to induce the labor naturally. After that, the hospital takes over and induces medically. With drugs. And Jessa’s hoping to avoid that. She wants to do this whole thing drug-free, which I told her is insane, but hey, I’m not the one with a baby about to come out of me.” She gave Jessa a look, and Jessa gave her a look back.
“Why twenty-four hours?”
“Because when the water breaks,” Jessa said, “that means the amniotic sac has ruptured and now bacteria can get in there and cause infection.”
“For whatever reason,” Maggie said, “they put a twenty-four hour time limit on that.”
“What about sex? Can’t that induce labor?” I’d heard somewhere that orgasm could bring on contractions, but maybe that was just another movie fact? And Brody wasn’t here anyway…
“Not now that the sac has ruptured,” Maggie said. “Bacteria.”
“Oh. Right.”
Maggie asked me to help her strip the bed so we could put on the waterproof sheet. We got Jessa’s bed all cozy for her, and I took a few photos of the girls talking as we worked.
Jessa ordered Maggie, “Don’t judge me,” then asked her to put one of Brody’s T-shirts on a pillow like a pillowcase. “I need to smell him right now. It’s an animal thing.”
“Jesus,” Maggie said, but she snuck a smile at me as she did as requested. “You want to crawl off into a cave somewhere and have this baby there? Maybe Brody can clean the baby off with his tongue and chew through the umbilical cord after it comes out of you.�
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“Ew,” Jessa said, but she laughed, and the anxiety that had been weighing on her seemed to crack.
I could see why she’d chosen Maggie to be here. It wasn’t just Maggie’s managerial efficiency. The two of them had an easy, loving friendship underlaid with deep trust, and Maggie had put a smile on Jessa’s face for the first time in an hour.
I took a photo of them standing there in the glow of the bedside lamp, Jessa looking beautiful, tired and very pregnant as Maggie handed her a pillow wearing a man’s blue T-shirt.
“He looks so good in blue,” Jessa said softly, her voice kind of far away. “His blue eyes…” Maggie steered her onto the bed and as she helped her get comfortable, Jessa asked, “Do you think the baby will have blue eyes?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “Yours are brown. Isn’t that a dominant gene?”
Jessa looked mildly alarmed, though still sleepy, as she tried to make sense of this. “Really? Is that how it works? I always thought the baby would have his eyes…”
“Well, maybe it will.” Maggie caught my eye and muttered, “What the hell do I know about babies?”
“Now what?” I asked, handing Maggie a cup of tea as she perched on the edge of the bed.
“Now,” she answered with a shrug, “we keep Jessa entertained and comfortable until she falls asleep.”
“Well, mission accomplished.”
Maggie looked over her shoulder, to find Jessa curled up in fetal position, asleep. Before we slipped out of the room, I took a photo of her like that, hugging her Brody pillow to her chest.
I barely even knew Brody, but I knew he was gonna love that photo.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Dylan
“Thank you for calling,” I told Amber. “But get your ass back in there before you miss all the action.”
It was about two in the morning. Amber had been with Jessa for over twenty-four hours now, and I missed her.
Jessa had finally gone into labor a few hours ago, without need of any drugs, which was apparently what she’d wanted; Amber had been keeping me updated by text all day and night. But this was the first time she’d actually called.
I liked to think it was because she’d finally hit the point where she couldn’t stand not hearing my voice.
“I will,” she said, and I could hear the softness in her voice over the line. She was tired. Emotionally wrung out, but still exhilarated. I could tell the girl was on fire, doing what she loved, no matter how tired she was. “It’s fucking crazy in there. I’ve never experienced anything so…”
“Raw?” I filled in for her, making my best guess of how it would feel to experience something like a baby coming out of my friend’s body.
“Yeah.” She laughed a little, blowing off some nerves. “It’s that. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt. I can only imagine how it feels for Brody. For Jessa.” She sniffed a little, and I wondered if she was crying. “I’m gonna go get some more images. Hopefully I don’t get kicked out. Everything’s going pretty smoothly, but if any shit hits the fan, apparently me and the midwife get bounced and the obstetrician takes over. I should get some more shots while I can, just in case. Brody’s on the edge. I think he’s gonna cry soon. I don’t want to miss it.” She laughed again. “That sounds awful.”
“Naw. It’s what they hired you for. Go do your thing.”
“Okay.” There was a small pause and a sharp intake of breath. “I… I miss you.”
Those soft, hesitant words of hers rocked right through me. I squeezed my eyes shut, savoring the feeling. “I miss you, too.”
“I’ll call you again when I can, give you the update.”
“Good. Amber?”
“Yeah?”
I looked out at the water in the dark; I was standing on my back deck in the cold. “I’m proud of you.”
She sniffed loudly. “Don’t do that. I can’t shoot if I can’t see.” She sobbed a little and added, “I’m hanging up now, for real.”
“I love you.” The words spilled out before I could think about it. There were tears in my eyes; the girl was fucking slaying me.
Amber Malone had such a capacity for compassion, she just didn’t even have a clue… the girl was all heart.
There was so much to her I knew she hadn’t even let me get near yet. I wanted to keep peeling back all the layers of her and expose it all, kiss her and keep her and make her feel safe to be naked like that with me.
Shit… I’d never felt so mushy-romantic with a woman. It was kinda nice.
With her, actually, it was becoming addictive.
“Goodbye, Dylan.”
She hung up. I knew she’d heard what I said.
But she hung up.
I looked out at the water. I blinked back the tears in my eyes and got my shit together, grounding myself with that serene, unchangeable view. It was here a long fucking time before I came along. Wasn’t in the least moved by my tears. It was steady. Permanent. Filled with a kind of wordless promise.
The way I wanted to be.
For her.
When I made my way back into the house, I found Ash waiting in the kitchen. He’d made a late dinner of wings and dirty rice for us after I came back from the studio, then we’d hung out, tinkered in the workshop, listened to some music.
He’d been kind of off, tense, ever since Amber went into town for the baby shower. I figured he was missing her, too.
And his growing attachment to her was worrying me.
Maybe I kept hoping he’d lose interest, like he so often did. Realize he wasn’t as compatible with her as I was and let me have her.
Something selfish like that.
But it just didn’t seem to be happening.
And I was getting more and more scared, every time he looked at me with that anxious look in his eyes, that he was gearing up to confess something to me I did not want to hear—like the fact that he was falling for her, too.
I’d thought he’d gone to bed a while ago. But here he was, staring at me, and I felt myself tensing up. He glanced at the phone in my hand as I stashed it in my pocket.
“Hospital?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Heavy?”
“Yeah.”
“How is she?”
“Good, I think. I mean… she’s in the middle of having a baby, so maybe… not good?” I swiped a bottle of water from the fridge. Would’ve rather had a beer, but I was planning to hop in the boat in a while, and I was never gonna be that guy—driving after I’d been drinking. Not with Amber around, counting on me to be decent. “She’s having it any minute now.” I shook my head, my mind kinda blown. “Sounds like Brody’s gonna be a dad before the sun’s up.”
“Cool,” Ash said, but then he shook his head, too. “Fucking crazy, actually.”
“Yeah.”
“But I meant… how’s Amber?” He met my eyes, and there it was. That fucking anxiety, his eyebrows pulled together with a deep crease between them.
“Happy, I think.” I settled in, leaning on the island. “You know, taking photos, that’s her happy place.”
Ash said nothing. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and joined me at the island. He leaned beside me as we drank.
After a moment, he opened his mouth to speak. I could feel him trying to work up the nerve.
Fucking shit.
Here it comes.
“I told her… I’m falling in love with her,” he said, finally.
“You did?” I looked into his eyes, and I saw all the vulnerability there. He was serious, and whatever had come of it, it wasn’t good.
“Day before yesterday. While you were at the studio.” He turned to look directly in my face, his brow all creased, studying my reaction to this. Like he was worried what I’d think.
“And…?”
“And…” He sucked back a hard breath. “And she doesn’t love me.” He took a pull off his beer, but he was still watching me.
“She said that?”
&n
bsp; “She didn’t have to. She, uh, tried to let me down easy.”
I watched him swig his beer, not even sure what to say.
“So… am I supposed to get the gun now?” I offered, attempting a joke.
He stared at me.
“You said if you fell in love again, that I was supposed to—”
“Amber’s a special girl,” he said quietly. “You know that, right?”
I knew. But I didn’t know what to do with his pain anymore. I didn’t have a clue what to say about what he’d just told me; that Amber didn’t love him.
I had so many mixed feelings over hearing that it wasn’t funny.
Relief that Amber wasn’t in love with Ash. Sympathy for Ash that she wasn’t in love with Ash. Hope that maybe she wasn’t in love with Ash because she was in love with me.
Guilt that maybe she wasn’t in love with Ash because she was in love with me.
“Actually,” he said, his voice rough, “she told me I’m in love with you.”
He looked away and guzzled more of his beer.
I said nothing as he rubbed a hand through his hair. But a deep, dark chasm was opening up inside my guts, making my stomach drop out the bottom.
“Actually,” he said, “she told me to tell you I’m in love with you.”
“Ash—”
He turned and hit me with a kiss before I knew what was coming. I didn’t push him off. I fucking froze as his lips pressed to mine. He breathed against my face, a hungry sound, in-between a sigh and a groan. He pushed up against me and his hands gripped my face, like he never wanted to let me go.
The feel of him, his nearness, the smell of him… all of it was familiar. It didn’t repel me.
But it didn’t turn me on.
And he felt it; that this wasn’t gonna end well. I felt it, with a shocking kind of nakedness I’d never felt before.
This wasn’t about Amber.
It was about Ash.
It was about me.
Which meant I needed to be straight with him—no fucking pun intended.
I had to let him go. Because including him in my intimate life, sharing a bed with him in any way, was only hurting him.
I knew that now. It was obvious to me, grossly obvious in a way that hit me with a wave of shame, because I’d never even realized it before.
Dirty Like Dylan: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 4) Page 36
